Today’s Filter Feeding Whales Had Sharp-Toothed Ancestors

Today’s Filter Feeding Whales Had Sharp-Toothed Ancestors

Today we know big blue whales as gentle giants but new studies indicate that it was probably not always this way. While the largest living mammals today eat very small ocean animals—known as krill—whale ancestors actually used to stalk and hunt much larger prey.

Today’s whales are “filter feeders” because they don’t have massive teeth, like sharks and other ocean predators. Instead these whales—called “baleen whales”—filter food through something like a brush: they open their mouths to take in water and food and push the water back out through the baleen bristles.

But, as it turns out, baleen whales did, in fact, at one point, have well-defined teeth. This was not necessarily completely foreign knowledge, but researchers just were not quite sure how ancient whales had used their teeth. Recent analysis of these ancient whale fossils, though, may have shed some new light.

According to paleontologists at Monash University (Melbourne, Australia), 3D scanners can help us to better understand the jaws and teeth of ancient whale. Fossil colelctions all over the world have helped researches to build new models of ancient whale jaws, particularly the ancestors of the southern right whale and blue whale.

And these models reveal very sharp and powerful teeth that would have been quite capable of breaking down much larger fish than krill.

Monash associate professor of biological sciences Alistair Evans comments, “Predators that kill and chew their prey need sharp teeth with cutting blades. By contrast, species that use their teeth as a sieve have blunt teeth with rounded edges that help to filter prey from water.”

He goes on to say, “We found that ancient whales had sharp teeth similar to lions and dingoes so it likely they used their teeth to kill rather than filter.”

Finally, Evans concludes, “Our findings provide crucial new insights into how the biggest animals ever evolved their most important trait: filter feeding. Filter feeding is the defining trait of modern whales — there are few ways in which this unique strategy could have evolved from tooth-bearing, predatory ancestors, and our study firmly rules out one of them.”

The most recent findings have been detailed in the journal Biology Letters.

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Global Warming and the End of the World

Fire, Floods, and Foul Weather- Is Global Warming the End of the World?

Scientists have long warned of the effects of a warming planet. The past four years have been the warmest recorded since reliable temperature measurements became available in the late 19th century.

Stronger hurricanes, heavier rainfalls, and record snow accumulations have been attributed to increased evaporation, which makes more moisture available for storms.

Warmer weather literally makes water expand. Glacial melting and falling ice shelves are only part of the reason sea levels are rising.

Mountain snows might be heavier, but they melt sooner and faster in the warmer climate. This allows vegetation on the mountains and in the valleys to dry earlier and more effectively. That, in turn, creates more severe wildfire conditions.

That same evaporation and rapid snow melt contribute to periods of drought and heat waves. It is all part of a predicted global warming cycle.

What does that look like?

In the past few weeks, the Northeast United States saw record rainfalls and flooding. Many victims report they had never seen flooding in their life until this year.

Wildfires rage across much of California, as well as Greece and Scandinavia. All three locations report unusual activity in the fires, such as creating its own weather system or spreading downhill as fast as it spread uphill.

Meanwhile, hundreds of heat-related deaths and illnesses were reported in Japan, England, and the Southwest United States where residents suffered through extended periods of dangerously hot temperatures.

Welcome to the New Normal

Record warm temperatures are expected to continue for the foreseeable future. There is little commitment toward replacing fossil fuel-driven cars and trucks, electric grids, or heating options.

Scientists studying global warming expect strong storms, widespread flooding, longer-lasting heat waves, and more intense wildfires to become the new normal around the world.

Climate change deniers point out that these things are not uncommon in summer months. They are right, but not with regards to the intensity.

Some weather experts predict that cyclonic storms might decrease in number, but the quantity of level 4 and level 5 hurricanes and cyclones will increase.

Events will occur in unusual places, too. In Greenland, one of the coolest and snowiest places on earth, it took weeks to control a massive wildfire in their grasslands.

New York City authorities expect severe flooding storms, with more than five feet of storm surge, to occur every five years by 2030. Historically, these events hit New York once every century.

Could this be the End of the World?

Coupled with recent reports of erupting volcanos and earthquakes, some alarmists and otherwise nervous people wonder if this is the beginning of the end.

There is no known link between volcanic or earthquake activity and global warming. Also, while volcanos have been in the news a lot recently, there is not a discernible increase in volcanic activity.

Scientists expect the world to change radically, with new coastlines taking shape during the climate change period. Despite several catastrophic predictions of imminent disaster in our lifetime, this will probably take many years, maybe centuries, to recognize.

There is, however, a recent event that might point to a more serious result of global warming. Scientists studying the big meteor impact that killed off the dinosaurs have been gathering information of the other results of that disaster.

Were Dinosaurs Victims of Global Warming?

They report that the heat of the meteor touched off widespread wildfires. It also moved or disintegrated large swaths of vegetation and rocks. This released large amounts of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere.

The result was a 5-degree global warming event. It took about 30 years for the increase to happen. The higher temperatures lasted about 100,000 years. Not much survived that time period.

Global warming today is mostly blamed on greenhouse gasses emitted via the burning of fossil fuel and an increasing world population that insists on breathing and knocking down forests to build homes.

Could we emit enough greenhouse gas into our atmosphere to match the dinosaur-killing global warming event? Expert opinions vary, but it might be time to take global warming seriously.

Herbivorous Dinosaurs Sometimes Took A Cheat Day in Their Diet

If you have ever been tempted to cheat on your diet, you are not alone. And if you have “cheated” on your diet, there is no need to feel guilty: even dinosaurs couldn’t keep it together!

Its true; a new study says that some herbivorous dinosaurs would sometimes cheat on their regular plant-based diet by eating crustaceans, now and then.

While part of this makes sense on a fundamental level it might make even more sense when you learn that the dinosaur species most likely “cheat” were hadrosaurs.

Hadrosaurs were a kind of duck-billed dinosaur and might have been the most common type of herbivore to live during the Cretaceous period. New research suggests, though, that they did not eat only marine vegetation as we previously thought: instead, it seemed that they would often eat crustaceans (and that this dietary wandering might be related to mating behaviors).

First of all, the research begins with the discovery of definitive crustacean shell pieces in fossilized dinosaur feces samples dating back about 75 million years. The samples were taken from the Grand-Staircase-Escalante National Monument, located in southern Utah.

Study author and curator of paleontology at the University of Colorado-Boulder Museum of Natural History, Karen Chin refused to believe the facts at first. “I was very surprised,” she said, “but I think it reminds us that there’s a lot we just don’t know about the behavior of ancient animals.”

As such, she encourages, “We need to refine our presumptions about dinosaur diets.”

Obviously, we have been able to learn a great deal about these magnificent creatures from the discovery and study of their bones. These bones tell us quite a bit about how the animals lived and what the atmosphere must have been like. However, they only tell part of the story. The discovery of crustaceans in fossilized herbivore feces, however, sheds new light on so much more in regards to how these animals actually interacted with their environment (not just what we theorize).

Chin goes on to say, “Direct evidence for diet in the fossil record is very rare. We are usually forced to rely simply on the bones, so we study the teeth and the jaw and other aspects of functional morphology. So when we find coprolites like these … they do provide a different perspective on the diet.”

So, why would these herbivores eat crustaceans? Well, Chin suggests that it was not a regular behavior but it was regulated by season. For example, Herbivores can’t simply eat rotting wood all the time (eventually there wouldn’t be enough) but they might have switched to crustaceans during the mating season to help fill in the protein and nutrient gaps.

WWF Identifies Nearly 400 New Animal Species in the Amazon Rain Forest

Lately it seems that they only thing we hear about rare animal species is that they are nearly endangered or nearly extinct. Today, though, we have some good news; scientists have recently identified nearly 400 never-before-seen species in the Amazon rain forest. This news comes in the third report of a series that has already listed 2,000 new species over the past 17 years.

The report lists:

216 previously unknown plant species

93 previously unknown fish species

32 previously unknown amphibian species

19 previously unknown reptile species

a single previously unknown bird species

They also have identified 20 previously unknown mammal species, though two of those are fossils.

But that good news sunshine comes with a few clouds, too. The World Wildlife Fund says that all of these specie have been discovered in areas already threatened by human activity. According to WWF Brazil and Amazon coordinator Ricardo Mello, “All the species that were discovered, all 381, are in areas where humankind is destroying the Amazon. This is very important to us, because it links the fact that our economic activities are causing species to go extinct before we even know about them.”

WWF Brazil and Amazon head Sarah Hutchison put it even more bluntly. She makes sure to point out because of this human activity, we could be at risk for losing many other new species that could die off before we even get a chance to find them. Perhaps on the heels of discovering the two mammal fossils, but she warns that some of these new species may only be discovered after their extinction.

She comments, “We are only at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to unveiling the incredible species that live in the Amazon, yet instead of this precious area being safeguarded, it is under greater threat than ever before.”

Hutchison also notes, “The discovery of 381 new species is a wake-up call for the governments of Amazon countries that they must halt the ongoing and relentless deforestation and work to preserve its unparalleled biodiversity. If they don’t, there will continue to be irreversible impacts on the Amazon’s much-loved wildlife, undiscovered species and the local and indigenous people that call it home.”

Still, Hutchison remarks that the data from this report might be just the wake up call for all of us. With more than 2,000 species discovered in the first fifteen years of the millennium, we really need to learn how even the smallest human impact can have a great impact.